Canada's procurement minister says a deal is close to receive Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine doses from the U.S., while the military commander in charge of the rollout here says all adults who wish could be able to get their first shot by July 1.
Canada's sluggish COVID-19 vaccination efforts are expected to get a big boost starting this week as the federal government prepares for a ramp up in the delivery of shots from Pfizer-BioNTech following a month-long lull.
A month-long slowdown in Canada's COVID-19 vaccine deliveries should end next week, with the single biggest shipment of vaccines from Pfizer and BioNTech to date and almost two million doses expected in the next month.
Concern over the spread of COVID-19 has delayed some voting in the Newfoundland and Labrador provincial election, postponed school holidays in Ontario and prompted Manitoba to seek vaccine from a Canadian supplier.
The Public Health Agency of Canada says Ottawa plans to distribute more than 70,000 Pfizer-BiotNTech vaccine doses this week ahead of a major ramp-up, but no Moderna doses are on the schedule.
Every COVID-19 vaccine maker Canada signed a contract with last summer was asked if they could make the doses in Canada and all of them concluded they could not, Procurement Minister Anita Anand said on Thursday, February 4, 2021.
A top science adviser says Ontario is far from in the clear despite a downward trend in COVID-19 cases, while some provinces criticized Ottawa for lower-than-expected vaccine shipments and the pandemic was flagged as an outsized contributor to Quebec's death count last year.
Canada is not getting any COVID-19 vaccine doses from Pfizer-BioNTech next week and the federal government says it can't tell provinces exactly how many doses to expect over the next month.
Ontario residents dealt with their first day under a stay-at-home order on Thursday, January 14, 2021, while federal officials warned that access to vaccines in Canada will remain a challenge until at least April.
